When John Medall, executive chef of The Patio on Lamont Street, was a boy, Thanksgiving at his parents’ house went something like this: After the whole family sat down to eat turkey and trimmings, at one point his father would repair to the kitchen and start his own private ritual.

“Everybody would eat their turkey and my dad would be in the kitchen, picking apart the turkey carcass,” Medall said in an interview at his Pacific Beach restaurant. This was “my dad’s favorite thing in the whole world.”

His mother objected, not because it was unseemly, but because his father was gobbling away at a key ingredient: the tender leftovers that could be turned into turkey soup or pot pie or sandwiches.

Every scrap is sacred. Nothing must go to waste. That is the mentality Medall, 45, picked up from his repurposing mother and scavenging father.

The season of plenty is the perfect time to start thinking about stretching and recycling ingredients, Medall said. There are more opportunities to shop responsibly and more chances to make smart choices about preparation and leftovers.

He creates recipes with that in mind at The Patio, where it makes financial sense to use 95 percent of a fish, reserving parts for ceviche, other parts for fillets or steaks, and the bones for stock. He turns beef trimmings most Americans wouldn’t deign to sniff into bone-shaped biscuits dogs go gaga over.

That’s how he cooks for his family, too. “When I go home and my wife says, ‘Oh, we don’t have anything to eat,’ or ‘Go pick something up on the way home,’ I’m like, no, there’s gotta be something in the house that we can make.” Once, he crumbled Fritos around some unappetizing leftovers and made Frito nuggets. They were a hit with his kids.

His approach isn’t just about saving money. He wants to leave the world a better place for his children.

“Sustainability is paramount,” Medall said. “We should have been thinking about that a long time ago. … I look at my three kids. I go wow. I want something more for them.” He wishes people would deposit less in landfills, simply by being more thoughtful about what and how they consume.

In addition to repurposing leftovers, Medall has three suggestions for creating holiday feasts that are good for the environment and the pocketbook:

• Budget permitting, consider your ingredients with care. Sourcing locally means products have traveled shorter distances, which results in fewer emissions. Also, choosing organic ingredients and those grown without pesticide is healthier for those who eat, those who handle the produce or meat, and the environment, he said.

• Exploit those odds and ends. Strawberry tops? That’s about the only thing he couldn’t think of a way to repurpose, as he ticked off a long list of salvageable scraps. Those tough asparagus ends? Boil, purée and chill them for gazpacho. Swiss chard’s tough stem? “It has a lot of nutrients. So why not use it? Dice it up very fine, put it in a pan with some garlic and shallot and a little bit of white wine and braise it down to where they’re soft and edible.” There’s your fish garnish.